


Stochastic Resonance

by morphogenesis



Category: Zero Escape (Video Games)
Genre: Exes Who Care, M/M, Murder Mystery, Time Travel, With thanks to Hammett
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:34:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25936000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphogenesis/pseuds/morphogenesis
Summary: One long night, Light goes to Aoi, his estranged ex, for help with hiding a body.Problem is: It’s another Aoi’s body.
Relationships: Light Field/Kurashiki Aoi
Comments: 7
Kudos: 15





	Stochastic Resonance

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Dashiell Hammett’s “The Woman in the Dark.” The story Aoi thinks of is by Fredric Brown.
> 
> TW: Gun violence.
> 
> Every now and then I go through my drafts, find an iddy Aoilight fic and go, 'Oh hey I forgot I like this.'
> 
> ETA 2/16/21: This has been discontinued.

There was a famous two-sentence story:

“The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door.”

Aoi never expected to be that guy.

Akane had sent him to one of their smaller hideouts, a cabin in the mountains. He was supposed to relax before the big day: the day they invaded the fanatic’s base. But here someone was, pounding on his door. Nobody was trying to break it down or throw gas or flashbangs through the window, so maybe it wasn’t the cops or worse. It wasn’t his people; they knew the code to the door. 

Aoi slid under his work table, rolling to his stomach to crawl under the windows and out of the visitors’ line of sight, and reached for the can of bear spray by the coat rack. He could wait for them to break in and then attack, or come at them head on, and he knew both were risky but he wasn’t dying in the middle of nowhere either—

A woman’s voice: “Hey! You changed the code and it’s pouring out here! Let us in!”

Aoi held on to the spray as he rose to a crouch, listening.

She spoke again, “I know you’re in there!” The door thudded from a forceful blow. “Junpei!”

That voice was familiar, and it made sense that she thought he was Junpei as Aoi had taken his car up to the cabin.

“Get out!” he called back. If he was right about who it was, she was one of the last people he’d want to see.

The next reply took a while—then the door rattled in its frame like someone was beating it. 

“Let us in!” a man said raggedly. He was even more familiar and Aoi wanted to see him even less.

At his voice, Aoi sighed and opened the door.

With only a door frame and empty air between them, Aoi and the Fields considered each other until Clover exclaimed, “You’re alive?” and thrust her long and blunt umbrella into his sternum as hard as she could.

Aoi hit the floor and was in too much pain to breathe, curled up. He thought of a steam of curses instead. 

Clover knelt down and felt his pulse. Her skin was wet. “You’re real.”

And pissed, though he still clutched his chest. “What…?” he gasped.

The door shut and Light came to his side haltingly. His arm froze as he reached for Aoi. His eyes were open.

“See him?” Clover said quietly. She meant morphogenetically, Aoi thought.

Light nodded, and then bent over and cupped Aoi’s throat, shuddering at the contact.

“What’s wrong with you?” Aoi said. The longer he made eye contact the more unnerved he got, taking in Light’s lost expression.

“Aoi?”

“Obviously!”

Light laughed, more a shivering exhale, and gulped before he covered his eyes. “I...” He coughed. “You’ve been dead for days. That’s all.” Then he circled once before sinking to the wood floor, head in his hands. "That's the problem," he said softly, wavering. "You're not supposed to be alive."

**

Clover was by Light’s side, hands on his shoulders, as he shook his head. He laughed because words failed him. Days ago, they had left one body in another state and packed the other one in a trunk within their trunk, coated with Diatomaceous earth. They ran as fast as they could and ended up here. And now one of the corpses was alive and ambulatory. Life was absurd.

“Is he losing it?” Aoi said.

“No. You—you really—” Clover rubbed Light’s shoulder. “Light?”

“Oh, this is fascinating.” He gasped. “We’re stranded in a quantum mechanics nightmare.” He rubbed his chest, feeling it tight and ungiving. “Schrodinger's Kurashiki is real.”

Aoi scoffed. “...You show up after a year, and you’re drunk.”

“Shut up!” Clover got up, there was the sound of a bag being unzipped, and then the whip and smack of something hitting its target. “That’s how we know,” she said.

_Light? We’ve gotta take their IDs before anyone finds them. The passport stuck together with blood._

“...What happened to this?”

“It was on your body.” That word again.

Light’s consciousness retracted until it separated from his nerves and muscle. Nothing inside could get out. His ribs folded. His voice sank in his throat. This both was and was not happening.

_This is happening, Light thought as the muzzle of a pistol dug under his chin. Life underwater._

_“What are you thinking? Are you thinking?” he asked Aoi._

The problem was that Aoi was alive even though Light could still feel the pulpy flesh of his throat in between his fingers and under his nails, the warm blood on his skin as it sunk in there was no salvaging him. The room smelled like fresh meat.

And he was alive. 

**

“Somebody tried to kill you?” Aoi said softly. A flash of sadness and concern lit up his brain; for a moment all he could think about was comforting them, making sure they were okay. He hadn’t seen either of them for a year and to his surprise he found the feelings could still be there.

Light looked pathetic on the floor, still laughing brokenly to himself. Clover shook him but he didn’t reply.

“Hey,” Aoi said, bending over to meet him at face level. “It’s gonna be fine. Tell me what you did with the body and we’ll fix it.” Whatever they were rambling about Aoi being dead would make sense later.

“You aren’t prepared,” Light said.

“Try me.”

Clover whispered something in Light’s ear, and he shook his head, swallowing.

“Come with me,” she said, straightening up and heading for the door. 

Aoi followed her, wondering at how they’d just arrived and managed to screw everything up again. He didn’t feel like seeing a dead body; he’d seen enough of those in his life, and his hands tingled as they approached the car.

With some trepidation, Clover unlocked the trunk and swung the lid open. Inside was a second trunk, huge and scuffed like it had been dragged to the vehicle, and Aoi tested one corner to see how heavy it was. Yeah, definitely dead body heavy.

“We could only move one of them, uh…” Clover played with the ends of her ponytail. 

Aoi could picture her putting her hair up with determination, going to solve the problem for her brother, and getting to work bloodying her hands. Aoi realized he hadn’t yet asked who killed the person, but he thought it didn’t matter. 

“Don’t freak out,” Clover said as she unlocked the second trunk and flipped it open. Inside of it was a bunched-up mass with a tarp tucked around it like the people who’d hidden it were in a hurry. 

Aoi reached for a corner of the tarp, near where he thought the head was, and noticed he could see some silver hair peeking out. Well that was unsettling, he thought, and then quickly pulled the rest of it back to see his own face staring back at him. The other Aoi’s eyes had been shut by somebody, but Aoi still felt shot through. He was freezing and burning all at once and his breath was stone still in his chest. He stepped away and then turned, feeling bile rise in his throat and he spat on the ground, trying to keep from puking, his hands over his churning stomach. He could only see the red of his own open throat and cold flesh.

“I told you not to freak out!” Clover said behind him.

“You have my dead body, and you call _me_ for help?”

“Well,” Clover said, “we _found_ you here. Not the same thing.”

Aoi gagged. “How did I die?”

“You broke into our house and tried to kill my brother,” she said quietly. “We shot you with your own gun.”

“Why would I do that?” Jesus, they’d broken up but Aoi wasn’t that mad about it. Not anymore. “How am I here!”

“I don’t know! You tell me!”

There were two mysteries to solve: Where the other Aoi had come from, and why he’d tried to kill the Fields. Aoi didn’t have the energy to solve either right now, nor any idea what to do with himself. He had no desire to destroy his own corpse or ever see it again.

“We don’t have anywhere to go,” Clover said, rubbing her arm. “You said you’d help us take care of it.”

Aoi shook his head. “That was before I knew it was me!”

A rustling announced a third person joining them. Light stood there looking dazed, holding himself.

“Help me,” Light said, strained and desperate. He reached for Aoi with one arm and touched his cheek.

Aoi’d never heard him sound or look so pitiable and it all but turned his stomach. This couldn’t be him. Aoi looked into the trunk storing a body. He felt the plea in Light’s touch. He held Light’s hand to his cheek and kept it there despite all his instincts saying he shouldn’t bother opening the door again.

“Okay.” He looked to Clover. “Well are you gonna try and kill me again?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’ll take it.”

They abandoned the car for the moment, and went inside. Aoi was glad to leave himself behind. After a few minutes cleaning up the small cabin to make room for two more people, he gave Light a cigarette when he asked and watched him head outside.

Through the window, he could watch Light lean heavily on the porch railing and smoke, wisps disappearing in the rain. It was weird seeing him so quiet and shaken. He didn’t acknowledge anything said to him. He didn’t even look tired. The rain and wind picked up and he stayed outside, hood up.

“I’ll talk to him,” Aoi said to Clover before going out himself. He stood beside Light and watched the shadows of the trees move with the rain hitting the leaves. He was quiet. 

“Give me a light,” he finally said, before noticing Light was almost out of his own cigarette.

Aoi lit one for himself and then another off his burning one and offered it to Light. 

Light didn’t thank him but accepted it. 

Aoi didn't hate the moment, though it felt weird. There were worse things than intimacy with someone you used to know.

Finally Light said, “You never used to smoke. When did you start?”

“Yes I did. Just because you don’t remember it…” Aoi was getting into an old argument, Light about to use his own words against him. He always hated that.

He changed the subject. "You had to have known someone might be here. How did you plan to play this off?" 

"I would say I relied on some sharp deductive reasoning." Exhale, smoke in his nose. "But I'd be lying."

Aoi remembered that he’d brought Light to the cabin a few times. Clover would know this place existed and that it was one place to dispose of a body as completely and privately as possible. She'd always be the one to watch out for, Aoi thought.

"Can we have one night?" Light asked.

Aoi remembered the last time he said that, under very different circumstances. Nobody had been murdered. But he sounded needy and Aoi would do anything to get him back to his old, unbearable self. 

“Stay. You’ve got the common sense of a fly,” Aoi said.

“Thank you.”

“It’s hard, y’know. To explain. I have no idea how you’re getting outta this one.” He took a deep inhale, willing it to soothe himself. Thinking of his dead body still made him cold and uneasy. What the hell was he going to do with that?

“I don’t either,” Light admitted. “I…”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad you’re here. That you’re alive.”

“Oh. Yeah, me too.” Aoi finished his cigarette in the silence that followed and then stubbed it out on the railing. “Come inside. Get some sleep.” He nudged Light’s shoulder with his own, trying to steer him back towards the door.

“Forgive me if I don’t want to sleep with you,” Light tried to joke.

“Ha. Ha. Over my dead body.”

The two snorted at the black humor and Aoi covered his mouth. Their situation was definitely That Bad, but being near someone familiar was a comforting anchor. That night he swore two things to himself: That he was going to help the Fields, and that he wasn’t going to let the entire situation drive him crazy.

It occurred to him that there used to be a time when he didn’t mind Fields driving him crazy.

That was a long time ago.


End file.
